Page 44 of Miss Dashing
Phillip regarded his reflection and beheld a somewhat largish, though well-turned-out fellow who’d clearly spent too much time in the sun to be truly fashionable. The embroidery, gold, lace, and starch bothered him, but they were precisely the appointments he needed to become comfortable with as a marquess’s heir.
A stubborn voice in his head brayed the inevitable counterargument: Why be fashionable when a man could instead be happy, comfortable, and useful?
“You plan to offer for Hecate Brompton, don’t you?” DeWitt said. “Fast work, but then, you don’t have to compete for her hand.”
“Because the assembled dimwits and their Mayfair brethren have been too stupid to give me any competition. Should I bring gloves?”
“Not for an informal supper buffet, but you should wear your signet ring.” DeWitt held up his right hand, the smallest finger of which sported what looked like an emerald ring.
Phillip did not hold with men wearing rings. Too fussy by half, and dangerous if the fellow was working with livestock. He slipped the signet ring on his finger anyway. The other guests might be ornery and contrary, but they were not barnyard beasts.
“Will you request permission to court Miss Hecate first?” DeWitt asked. “Do the pretty and all that other whatnot?”
Phillip left his room and made for the footmen’s stairs, DeWitt in tow. “I will go down on bended knee in the middle of the Hyde Park carriage parade if she’ll allow it, but I thought a word with Mr. Brompton might also be in order.”
They rounded the first landing. “Do you know what to say?”
“To Mr. Brompton? What I have to say is hardly polite, but I won’t pummel him.”
DeWitt trotted along for two more floors. “You can’t lecture him, Phillip. You cannot scold and sermonize. Hecate Brompton is his daughter, all but his chattel in the eyes of the law, or she was until she reached her majority. You must tread lightly with him, be respectful.”
“No,” Phillip said, hauling open the door to the main floor. “When a fractious colt is testing his handler, treading lightly and being respectful is a certain path to creating a difficult horse. The situation wants firmness and clarity, within the bounds of decorum. Isaac Brompton has made a poor showing as Hecate’s father, but he can and will do better going forward.”
“Don’t do this,” DeWitt muttered, nodding genially at one of the Corvisers. “Please just play the game, Phillip. Be respectful and humble. Don’t treat Brompton as if he’s unruly livestock.”
Brompton certainly qualified as an ass. “Is this when you tell me, once again, that we should leave? Would you like to leave, DeWitt?”
Mrs. Roberts sashayed past on the Earl of Nunn’s arm, and Nunn was for once smiling. Faintly, mostly about the eyes, but the old fellow appeared downright charming when he beheld Mrs. Roberts. DeWitt, by contrast, looked as if he wanted to hide behind the nearest potted palm.
“Yes,” DeWitt said quietly. “I would like to leave and never come back. Let’s go to dinner, shall we? I’m sure Portia and Flavia are eager to share their meal with their favorite courtesy lord.”
Bollocks to you.Phillip knew better than to say that. “And I will once again delight in their company, gentleman that I am.”
“For the love of God, be careful,” DeWitt muttered, donning a smile as Eglantine Brompton swanned closer, looking intent on seizing DeWitt by the arm. “I bid you good evening, my lord. Please take my words to heart.”
DeWitt went graciously to his fate, while Phillip considered that a house party that had loomed before him as a distasteful ordeal was now to be the scene of immense, shared happiness. He was not the awkward yokel newly initiated to Society’s boring and silly ranks.
Or not only that. He was also a man in love with the most estimable and dear of ladies, and that made all the difference.
ChapterTen
“And this is my father,” Hecate said, feeling, as always when she used those words, like a trespasser on Isaac Brompton’s tolerance. “Lord Phillip, may I make known to you Mr. Isaac Brompton. Papa, Lord Phillip Vincent.”
Papa, as the man of lesser rank, bowed first, but it was a shallow, grudging effort. What else had Hecate expected?
“My lord, I am too delighted to meet you. Simply too delighted. I understand you are down from Berkshire. Does Hampshire agree with you?”
Phillip smiled. “Hampshire has fewer trees than we do up in Berkshire, but I believe the sheep here tend to be larger.”
Papa blinked, then reciprocated with an alarmingly genuine smile of his own. “Always a plus, when the sheep are fat.” He imbued the words with a double meaning that likely went over Phillip’s head, an inference about lordly dupes and easy marks. “If you’d excuse us, I’d like a word with my daughter.”
Another slight hesitation before the worddaughter, and Hecate steeled herself to be lectured about the gross inappropriateness of allowing Edna to remain in the Hawthorne Suite. In the alternative, Papa’s shaving water hadn’t been hot enough, or too hot, or the punch—Mama’s best recipe—had been too tart or too sweet.
Papa had a need to play the lecturing father even if he resented every other aspect of the role.
Phillip bowed over Hecate’s hand, then let her go with the subtlest brush of his thumb over her knuckles. If Hecate could have flown to the heavens, shoved the sun beneath the horizon, and hastened the end of the day, she would have.
She contented herself with a curtsey instead.
